According to "The Team," the intention is to "make our small- to mid-sized advertisers more successful," and "raise the performance of accounts that are experiencing issues like low-quality quality scores, low lead volume or low click-through rates."

Unfortunately, the way it's implemented has left many advertisers up in arms, for good cause. While it may be successful for inexperienced advertisers, it has caused plenty of distress for many advertisers.

Once Yahoo identifies an account that it believes will benefit from "optimization," it will go in and create new ads for existing ad groups, including multiple ads which it will test against each other. Yahoo will also add keywords that it believes will drive more targeted traffic.

Yahoo says it will notify advertisers of any changes within 24 hours, and the changes are reversible. But several advertisers have said they were never notified, or were notified several weeks later, after a client's budget was already spent on these new ads.

And many advertisers are criticizing the changes that are made, saying that ads were poorly written and new keywords were hardly relevant.

If the program were entirely opt-in -- before the changes were made -- it might be welcomed as a new option to try out. But they're making changes to an advertiser's account, without permission, and without regard for existing client limitations or strategies.

As it stands now, it makes many advertisers question whether they should subject their clients to an ad program that removes any kind of control from their own ads.

About the author

Kevin Newcomb joined ClickZ in August 2004, covering search marketing and other online marketing topics. He has been reporting on web-based businesses since 2000.

Before the bubble burst, Kevin was a marketing manager for an online computer reseller, handling copywriting, e-mail marketing, search marketing and running the affiliate program.

With a combination of real-world marketing experience and years of business journalism, Kevin brings to ClickZ a unique ability to deliver news and training materials that help online marketers do their jobs better.